Surf Ed
by LovesMileyNSpashley
Summary: Disclaimer: I own nothing! Desriptions inside. but its really jus a fun spashley spin.
1. If You Could Only See

**Disclaimer:** I OWN NOTHING AT ALL

Chapter names don't have to do with anything at all witht the chapter itself. They're just song names lol

**Summary:** Spencer Carlin and her mother have jsut moved to Hermosa Beach, California, when Spencer discovers that some of her credis from her old school won't transfer. Determind not to suffer through two years of Loser PE, Spencer bluffs her way into Surf Ed.-despite the fact that she has no idea how to surf. With the help of her surfing instructor, Duke, and her new crush, Ashley, Spencer finally makes it past the breakers. But she soon learns that surfing is only _part_ of what the class will teach her....

* * *

Spencer wondered if she was the first girl to ever fall in love in a riptide. Okay, to say that she had fallen in love was perhaps too strong a statement. But she had fallen into something more significant than just her arms. They surged up with the swell, and she pulled her to her a little tighter.

"Well thank you for saving my life and all. I really do appreciate it," she said.

They were washed four hundred more yards south before there was a break in the wave pattern and they finally emerged out of the surge of swiftly flowing water.

Leaving her to follow her own pipe dream, Spencer tumbled to shore on the crest of a three-footer. Only five minutes before, she had longed to touch solid ground. But as she trudged through the wet sand, she felt oddly sad to be leaving the water. She turned and shaded her eyes just in time to see her catch the best wave of the day, a spurt of perfection. Her breath quickened as she watched how beautifully she surfed the break, a lone surfer on a long, endless ride.

And she couldn't help but thinking to herself that falling in love was a lot like being in a rip. You don't know you're in it until its too late.

* * *

**Chapter One**

I moved from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Hermosa Beach, California, exactly eight days, four hours, and thirty-seven minutes before the beginning of my junior year. Eight days, four hours and thirty-seven minutes to unpack my boots, hang up my Tim McGraw poster, and find a new friend, which was entirely my mothers idea. I had spent my whole life time in Cincinnati working my way up the social food chain. When I left town, I was at the bottom of the b-list with only one true friend. What made my mom think I could find a new one in eight days, four hours, and forty six minutes before the start of classes? (Time passes when you're blogging.) The way I figured, I had barely enough time to decide what to wear.

Spencer rested her hands on the keyboard of her laptop and fixed her eyes on the unpacked boxes that rose from floor to ceiling in her double wide trailer like cardboard mountains. She wanted to post that shark image on her Myspace blog, but that meant actually finding her digital camera. Deciding it was worth the effort, she maneuvered through the cramped living room, scanning the hand written box labels. She opened one marked Spencer's Stuff only to find a carton full of mismatched Tupperware containers. So much for her moms stellar organizational skills. Once more, Spencer puzzled over her moms sudden decision to leave Ohio for California. Paula had packed up their sprawling, ranch-style home in a record thirty six hours and fifty-two minutes, exactly two weeks before escrow closed. They left under the cloak of darkness like thieves stealing away in the middle of the night. For miles and miles, Spencer prayed her mother would U-turn their Ryder truck around and head back to Ohio. She didn't give up hope until they pulled up into Topeka Kansas. There she finally accepted that life as she knew it had officially ended.

Spencer had spent three days sorting through stacks of mislabeled boxes, unsuccessfully searching for her favorite pieces of clothing. She finally found her camera in a container marked Kitchen spices. Squeezing her small frame in between the boxes, she held the camera at arms length and started snapping. Her eyes were her best feature, mainly because she had long lashes, which meant she didn't have to wear mascara, a wonderful asset because she thought makeup in general was more trouble than it was worth. But the problem was that the angle she had chose unintentionally made the boxes look ginormous and made Spencer appear even smaller than she really was. Barely over five feet tall, Spencer was petite, a term she hated. She felt that labeling people was degrading to begin with and that labeling them by size was a major crime. She was built straight up and down, with no real girly curves. She was slender enough, but she was soft. Exercise was not her forte, which was why she was very proud of her flat, washboard stomach. When commented upon, she liked to point out that she had never done a sit-up in her life.

Paula had left an hour earlier for her late shift at a defense contractor plant just south of LAX. Spencer was effectively on her own, which she didn't mind. Not one bit. Only a little hungry, even though it was almost six thirty, Spencer wandered from the living room into the kitchen, which only took about one and a half seconds. Her Ohio home had three whole rooms between the kitchen and living room. Spencer felt strange about a new family moving into her old house, as if the walls held private memories and secrets that the new family had access to, instead of her. If walls could talk, would they whisper what terrible thing had happened in those rooms? As far as Spencer knew her parents hardly ever fought. What could have been so hideous that it would make her mother leave her dad, file papers for a divorce, and give up a beautiful suburban home for a double-wide in Hermosa? Every time she questioned her mom about the divorce or the move, Paula offered up the same flimsy excuse: "Well I don't want to say anything bad about you're dad."

On the chipped Formica table was a pair of chopsticks, a box of microwave ramen noodles, a gerbera daisy plopped in an empty soda can, and a hand scribbled note that read: "See you in the morning honey. Enjoy your dinner." Back in Ohio, her mom cooked a homemade dinner every single night. They only did take-out when she was sick. Was her moms cheery note some kind of joke, a feeble stab at the ironic? Spencer sighed, twisted her thick, long , blonde hair into a bun at the back of her neck, and grabbed one of the chopsticks off the table to secure it. She scooped up her keys off the table and left through the back door.

Outside were thirty mobile homes crowded on a cracked asphalt pad. To the west an enormous sand dune, covered in verbena, towered over the park ominously. It seemed to Spencer one little tremor in the earth's shelf could send an avalanche of sand down upon them, bury the entire park, and condemn the residents to a gruesome death

"Marineland Mobile Park has been here for sixty years and has survived several major earthquakes," the landlady, Miz Boyer, told them when they moved in, offended by Spencer's doomsday scenario. None of the residents of Marineland Mobile Park knew the landlady's first name, so they all pronounced "Miz" with a "z" because that's the way she said it.

Spencer walked under the iron archway, leaving the dreary trailer park behind. She stepped onto Pier Avenue, the busy main street of her new home, a tiny Southern California beach hamlet whose brightly painted storefronts were at odds with Spencer's mood. She passed a bakery called Yak and Yeti's, a sushi bar that was actually a bar, a French lingerie store, and a funky British record store (and yes, it actually said record on the neon sign). She saw girls wearing bikinis and belly rings, old men in Hawaiian shirts walking there dogs, young singles in Juicy Couture smoked dresses, soccer moms corralling their charges, Emo rockers in too-tight, too-old clothes, kids on skateboards, and Hollywood hipsters down for the day. Most were wearing flip-flops-so many, in fact that Spencer wondered that if the thong sandal was the California state shoe. In Ohio she had been on the cutting-edge of cool, but the cultural sand had shifted. Here in this beach town, she felt like somebody's poser in her torn up converse, a pair of shredded jeans, and a vintage tee from Willie Nelson's Fourth of July Picnic, circa 1984. But she was a country fan and those jeans had been her favorite for the longest time and her shoes seemed to give her luck.

When a four-year-old girl in teeny-tiny flip-flops whispered to her mother as she pointed at Spencer's ripped up converse, Spencer ducked into a funky surf shop with "used boards fifty buck" lined up like dominoes outside the front.

Inside, she quickly moved past the racks of expensive, designer surf wear (Roxy, Quicksilver, and Hurley) to the back of the store, where an entire wall was devoted to ultra-cool flip-flops. The choices were endless: brown leather, black suede, thin or thick straps, tan with turquoise, and one with beaded medallions, They even had hot pink studded with rhinestones, dressy enough to wear to prom. All of them were over priced, in Spencer's opinion. In her former life, Spencer thought nothing of paying fifty dollars for a pair of shoes and hundreds for the real converse high-tops, but forty dollars for a little leather strap attached between your toes seemed outrageous. Spencer flagged down a young salesman with tattoo covered arms.

"Do you have any plain, ol' rubber flip-flops?" Spencer asked.

"Do we look like Wal-mart?" he asked.

As if Wal-mart would hire a guy with spiked purple hair and shoulder-to-wrist tattoos.

"Do you have anything less expensive?" she asked.

He pointed dismissively to a sale bin of rubber thongs adorned with garish plastic flowers, last years model on sale for a mere five bucks. She chose a pair adorned with pale yellow rosebuds and left the store with her converse tucked away in a Roxy shopping bag, feeling much better about her outfit, if not herself.

The palm-tree-lined plazza that led to the pier was jumping. It was last call for summer, and happy hour was cranked up to maximum speed. Twenty something singles spilled out of the bars and onto the patios, soaking up the warm sun along with their beers. Next door too the bar, Spencer spotted a group of kids more her age at Java boy, celebrating the last week of vacation with legal intoxicants, fancy coffee drinks. Spencer was stuck by how fused these kids seemed with their surroundings, how perfectly at home. She longed to be one of the girls sitting at a table under the awning, sipping a frothy cappuccino and flirting with the easy laugh of confidence. As Spencer passed by, one of the girls actually smiled at her. While Spencer mentally scrambled for a clever icebreaker , she was clipped from behind , her feet jerked out from under her. She landed unceremoniously on her butt, right in front of the girl she was trying to impress. Even if the girl wasn't gay like Spencer maybe she could at least have gotten a friend. A blur passed her, what looked to be a dog leashed to a skateboard.

And, in fact, that's just what it was. Spencer had been tripped by a local legend, a tall, tanned, thirty-year-old woman who used her pit-bull to power her skateboard.

Everyone at the table started laughing. They couldn't help themselves. It was hard to tell who looked more ridiculous; Spencer splayed out on the pavement, or the woman on the skateboard, screaming at her leashed dog to keep going. Spencer wasn't about to be the victim of some hit-and-run by some weird California New Age version of dogsled. She struggled to her feet and yelled, "Hey you- stop! Come back here."

The skateboarder yanked at the leash, and the pit bull careened to a stop. She flipped off her skateboard and turned around, revealing enormous, surgically enhanced breasts. "Why?" she yelled back.

"Well, I might be hurt. Did you ever think about that?"

"Well what do you expect me to do?" the woman asked snarkily, and the dog growled.

An unidentified female voice rang out, "How about you start with saying, 'I'm sorry'!"

Spencer turned around to see the owner of that amazing, compassionate voice. Spencer involuntary grabbed a small intake of air; it was almost a gasp. She looked as good as she sounded, the poster girl for California cool. She wore board shorts and tight bikini top as well as a serious expression. Her tan chest was glistening with a thin layer of water, and her hair glistened. To top it all of she had deep, soulful eyes. She scowled at the skateboarder, demanding justice. The skateboarder flipped her hair haughtily.

"Bitch." the skateboarder replied, not about to be lectured by someone ten years her junior, even if she was stunning. She jumped on her board, cracked the leash, and her pit bull took off at a run, presumably to terrorize other unsuspecting pedestrians. Before Spencer could turn to thank her, the barefoot Aphrodite tucked her surfboard under her arm and disappeared into the surf shop. Spencer brushed off her jeans and continued, as grateful for her show of kindness as she was disappointed in having lost the opportunity of meeting her face-to-face.

Spencer reached the end of the plaza and gazed out across the expanse of white sand leading to the water. The young surfers good looks and soulful stare may have made her gasp, but this view off the ocean took her breath away. To the north the Santa Monica Mountains pushed their way far out to the sea, and to the south, the lush, green hills of Palos Verdes rose majestically. Stretched out in front of her was the boundless Pacific Ocean, a god-touched sunset spilling into the azure waters in pools of fiery color. As she gazed across the vista, she considered the fact that she now lived at the place where land ends.

CRASH! Spencer's reverie was interrupted by the banging of trash cans. An old guy-at least thirty-five, maybe even forty- staggered out of a raggedy bar called the Paradise Inn and smashed into the trash cans lined up outside. He had a scraggily beard, a short ponytail, and skin aged by the sun to a leathery brown. He looked vaguely familiar; she thought she recognized him from Marineland Mobile Park, that he lived in the fourth trailer from the gate, the one with half a dozen surfboards packed out front. Clearly drunk, he fumbled for his keys.

"Are you okay?" Spencer asked, walking towards him. Five minutes ago she had been victimized by a strange only to be the recipient of the kindness from another one. She decided to play forward the kindness by lending a helping hand to a fellow human being who could clearly use assistance. It was the right thing to do. And, besides, she needed all the karmic brownie points she could muster. "Look, you're too messed up to drive. Can I call somebody to come get you?" she asked, flipping out her cell

He looked up at her, startled. A wave of gratitude passed over his face just before he turned pea green and blew chow. Spencer jumped back, but not quickly enough. Her brand-new flip-flops, not to mention her feet, were sprayed by his vomit, Speechless, he waved apologetically and weaved his way back into the Paradise Inn, flinging open the door and disappearing back into the bowel of that raucous establishment. Stunned, Spencer stared at her ruined sandals.

Back home, Spencer returned to her blog.

_Okay lets recap. My new home is a double wide in a tacky trailer park. I can't find the box with my clothes in it. And so far today, I've knocked on my butt, laughed at, and thrown up on. Makes you wonder what could possibly happen next. Oh yeah, school. Perfect._


	2. My Sundown

**Disclaimer:** I OWN NOTHING AT ALL

Chapter names don't have to do with anything at all witht the chapter itself. They're just song names lol

**Summary:** Spencer Carlin and her mother have jsut moved to Hermosa Beach, California, when Spencer discovers that some of her credis from her old school won't transfer. Determind not to suffer through two years of Loser PE, Spencer bluffs her way into Surf Ed.-despite the fact that she has no idea how to surf. With the help of her surfing instructor, Duke, and her new crush, Ashley, Spencer finally makes it past the breakers. But she soon learns that surfing is only _part_ of what the class will teach her....

* * *

Spencer walked through the crowded, locker-lined corridor of Beach High clutching a piece of paper with her locker combination scribbled on it. Her old school, Garfield High, had been named after an obscure president, which was infinently better than the blandly generic "Beach." And her new school mascot was even more embarrassing. Not a fierce cougar or an imposing bear or a chivalrous knight. No, they were the Waves, the Beach Waves. Spencer wondered if Beach fans yelled "Tsunami!" at football games to intimidate rival teams.

The worst part of going to a new school was mapping out the territory: finding your locker, locating the clean bathrooms, and discovering which group owned which piece of lunchroom turf. The key to survival was figuring out the lay of the land as quickly as possible. Her first year at Garfield, she banded together with four other freshman who had known one another in middle school and were united by their common fear of upperclassmen. This time and at this school, she had to go it alone.

Spencer's locker was located at the end of the hall on the bottom of a stack of three. Blocking it was the senior beauty queen, Madison, who was holding court with her ladies-in-waiting, all of whom wore dresses over jeans, one of those popular yet terrible clothing trends that Spencer found super annoying.

"Excuse me," Spencer said politely as she edged past her, "I need to get to my locker."

As Spencer bent over to unlock her combination, she unintentionally brushed against Madison's chest with her elbow.

"You touched me," Madison said, offended.

"I'm sorry, but if you could move a little to the left, then I could actually open my locker," Spencer said.

Madison held her ground and continued relating the bringing details of a shopping expedition into Beverly Hills. Spencer had to contort like a pretzel in order to stuff her books in her locker. When she straightened, she accidentally grazed the hip pocket of Madison's three-hundred dollar jeans.

"You touched me again," Madison said, this time outraged. She raised her voice so that absolutely everyone in the crowded hallway could hear, "What a lesbian!"

Everyone turned and stared at poor Spencer, the girl who hated labels and who suddenly through no fault of her own had one, whether it true or not. She made a hasty retreat, followed by stares and whispers, and ducked into her first period English class, which was thankfully uneventful.

Second Period, Spencer entered the band hall tentatively. She slipped into a seat in the third row, not too far and not too close to the front, a little off to the side, sitting next to a very officious-looking girl wearing Oliver Peoples. She tossed Spencer a casual nod and a half-smile, "You must be the new girl."

Wow, word travels fast.

"The Ohioan lesbian." the girl added.

Too fast, way to fast.

Spencer cleared her throat. "I'm Spencer Carlin,"

"I'm Kyla Woods, first chair clarinet and vice president of the junior class."

Spencer thought it odd if not pretentious for Kyla to introduce herself as the vice president of anything, but she was so grateful for the chance at conversation, she decided to let it pass. "So where do you live?" Kyla continued.

"Pretty close to the school," Spencer said, hedging, not wanting to reveal any embarrassing geographical details.

"Everybody lives close to the school. You can walk from one end of town to the other in twenty minutes. Are you east or west of Sepulveda?" Kyla asked, referring the six-lane thoroughfare that separated the beach cities with a string of interminably long traffic lights.

"West." Spencer answered truthfully.

"Excellent," Kyla commented. In Southern California, west was always more desirable because it was closer to beaches. "Are you in the sand section?"

"Kinda. I mean, there's a lot of sand near our house. An entire sand dune, as a matter of fact," Spencer said.

"What street are you on?"

"Marineland Park Drive," Spencer said.

"The trailer park? I thought only surf bums and really old people lived there."

From Kyla's expression, Spencer knew intuitively that she had lost major social ground. She scrambled to make it up. "Well, its only temporary. We're building a house on the Strand." Which was LIE NUMBER ONE.

"I live on Strand which one is yours?"

The Strand was a twelve-foot walkway that separated the multimillion-dollar mansions on beachfront property from the sand. Spencer struggled to remember the cross streets of the new homes under construction she had noticed on her outings last week.

"The one near Eighth," she ventured.

"Oh the Cape Cod," Kyla confirmed Spencer's best guess. "Cool. We'll be neighbors. Let me see your schedule," Kyla said, grabbing it from Spencer, who breathed a sigh of relief. "What are you doing in sixth-period PE?" she asked accusingly.

"My band credits from Ohio didn't transfer as PE credit."

"So do a sport."

"Everybody at Beach has got something. Even the nerdiest nerds run cross-country. I've lettered in three varsity sports already-lacrosse, tennis, and pole vaulting. And, just so you know, there's a reason why they call sixth-period physical education 'Loser P.E.' she warned.

The bell rang, and their band instructor lumbered in, carrying three extra music stands and an armload of sheet music. Stealing in unnoticed behind him was the young surfer she had seen the day before. Spencer couldn't believe it; she was all that and musical, too. Kyla nudged Spencer. "Is she hot or what?" Spencer was surprised that Kyla said that but figured since Kyla thought she was gay she would be more open about it, if only Spencer was

In guarded whispers as she walked toward them, Kyla explained that Ashley's Hawaiian adoptive mother had nicknamed her daughter Kai, which meant "the sea" in Hawaiian. A legend at the Beach, she grew up in L.A. and came of age in the kelp beds off Catalina. True to her nickname, she was a bona fide water chick and some said she was more comfortable swimming in the ocean than she was walking on land.

Spencer almost died when she slid into the empty seat next to her. Spencer couldn't help but notice that her hair was still wet. She shook it off her face; Spencer caught a whiff of salt, as if the girl had just emerged from the ocean instead of the shower. "Hi," Spencer said softly.

"Hi," she said back, flashing a million dollar smile. She wasn't flirting with her; she just had a great smile.

While the gangly band director, Mr. Fauver, organized his desk and role book, the room buzzed with dozens of conversations. Spencer took advantage of the opportunity to start her own. "Listen thanks for yesterday."

Ashley looked confused. "I'm sorry. Do I know you?"

Spencer turned away, embarrassed. She thought she had made a good impression, only to discover she had made no impression at all. She was invisible.

And invisible she felt through the next two classes. No one else besides Madison was intentionally mean to her. She was completely and totally ignored. In third period, she actually text-messaged herself so that in fourth she could pretend to be connected. When the bell for lunch rang, she slinked her way through one of the few locker-lined inside hallways. Beach High, like so many California schools, took advantage of the temperate weather. The school was divided into a series of smaller buildings, blocks of rooms opening directly to outside spaces and connected by foliage-lined pathways. Spencer was relied when she spotted Kyla strolling across the manicured grounds towards the main courtyard. Because Kyla had been borderline nice to her earlier that day, Spencer ran to catch up with her and asked her where the lunchroom was.

"The what?"

"The lunchroom. Well, that's what we called in Ohio. You know the cafeteria."

"We don't have one. We eat outside in the courtyard."

"What do you do when it rains?"

"It never rains in Southern California," she said flippantly.

Spencer had watched television coverage of huge hills of mud collapsing onto houses in Malibu, and she knew damn well where mud came from; it came from rain. But she wasn't about to pick an argument with her only semisolid connection in this impenetrable school.

They turned into the crowded Quadrangle, where the students had divided into smaller groups who claimed the territory on the first day of the fall semester that would be their lunchtime turf for the rest of the year. Kyla always sat with her other girls in ASB, which stood for Associated Student Body, the rah-rah planners of Winter Formals and hurricane relief fundraisers. She was the vice president of that group as well.

"Hey do you mind if I eat lunch with you?"

"Sorry," she said, gesturing to the girls who were waving her over, "but there's not really room."

Painfully alone, Spencer considered her options. Having none, she ducked down the open-air corridor leading to the band room. The door was ajar, so she stepped inside, looking for asylum. Sitting on the back row was a pimply faced, overweight freshman tuba player who ripped open the second of his third bag of ding-dongs. Spencer sat down in a chair in the front row in the far corner, an entire room away from her fellow outcast. And, together, yet apart, they ate their lunch in silence.

Spencer could not wait for the day to be over. Her last class was physical education. In the locker room she changed into baggy, school issued gym shorts and an oversize tee with an ocean wave plastered across the front that overwhelmed her small frame. She entered the gymnasium, scanned the faces of classmates, and knew immediately why it was called Loser P.E. It was full of misfits, the dregs of high school humanity, some in defiance of the social order and some victims of it, but each and every one was a certified outsider. Spencer had nothing against outsiders. It was just that she didn't want to be the former and she hadn't been born the latter. Sadly, the only one face in the crowd she recognized was her lunch buddy, the Ding Dong tuba player. And when he saw her, he screamed, "Are you following me?"

This was beyond bad. Destined to be the number one loser among a gym full of them, she turned and fled before role was even called.

Spencer marched past the attendance ladies, argued her way past the gatekeeper secretary at the next desk, and barged into her counselor's office. Ms. Rawlings was an overworked, underpaid, extremely tired lady in her mid fifties, who had over four hundred charges in her care and on any given Monday, half of them were unhappy.

"Is there any way I can get out of taking PE?"

Ms. Rawlings sighed. "I told you, Spencer. Only marching band counts as physical education credit. Jazz band is not considered an aerobic activity."

"Have you ever seen a hundred-pound girl play the sax? Talk about aerobic," Spencer insisted.

Ms. Rawlings smiled. There was something about this girl she liked, although she wasn't completely clear what is was. "Why don't you sign up for marching band?"

"I can't walk and chew gum at the same time, much less march and play."

"Okay. You could try out for a sport," she suggested.

"Not a good idea," Spencer said.

"Then I'm sorry, Spencer. You'll have to take PE."

"This is so unfair. If I stay in sixth period PE, I will die and I'm not exaggerating," Spencer said, melting into her chair like the Wicked Witch of the West.

"Maybe you should consider drama," Ms. Rawlins said, deadpan. "You seem to have talent for it."

"Will it count as PE?" she asked, and on Ms. Rawlings's look of frustration, she added quickly, "Okay, I'll do a sport, but do have one that doesn't involve a ball?"

"What about track and field?"

"I'm not very good at running and I don't like to jump over things."

"Spencer, there are five other kids with scheduling issues waiting for me. Can you try to be a little more cooperative?"

"Okay, how about something in the field of aquatics?" Spencer asked. She had Spent most of the Ohio summer in a swimming pool to escaped the heat.

"Well, we have a swim team, a diving team, a water polo team…"

"Water polo involves a ball," Spencer pointed out.

"Right," Ms. Rawlings noted. "What about water ballot?"

Concocting a weird version of pink tutus floating in an over-chlorinated pool, Spencer dismissed that idea and looked through the course catalog herself. She stopped at the next-to-last entry. "What's this?" she asked, pointing to big bold letters that read SURF ED.

Ms. Rawlings explained that kids could, in fact, surf away their PE requirement. The class met two mornings a week at six o'clock on the beach, and students didn't have to come to school until second period every day. Spencer was not a morning person, but the idea of sleeping late three times a week trumped having to get up early twice. Besides, how cool was it to get class credit for hanging out at the beach. She grabbed the drop/add slip and began filling it out enthusiastically.

"Spencer, do you even know how to surf?" Ms. Rawlings wondered.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because knowing how to surf and being ocean-aware is a prerequisite for taking this class."

"No, I meant why would you assume that I don't know how to surf?"

"Ohio is a little far from the ocean."

"My family summered at Padre Island," Spencer said, which was LIE NUMBER TWO. She had never even seen the Gulf of Mexico.

LIE NUMBER THREE wasn't exactly a lie. When Spencer got home from school she told her mother she needed fifty dollars for "school supplies." She took her mother's hard-earned cash and returned to the surf shop, where she sorted through the stack of fifty buck long boards. She found one that spoke to her. It was a nine-foot, seven inch standout, the longest board in the rack. If there was one thing every well-brought-up Ohioan girl knew, it was that when it came to diamonds, hair, and cars, size actually did matter and "bigger meant better." Spencer speculated that the same might hold true for surfboards. The surly salesman who had sold her the flip-flops watched slack-jawed as she pulled it off the rack and tried to maneuver it to the counter to pay for it. "Are you sure a little girl like you can manage that monster?"

Spencer exploded. "Do you think that jus because I am not from here, and aren't a big strapping California bimbo that I can't handle myself in the water?"

"I just think you'd be happier with a seven-footer," he said, gesturing to a rack of brand-new boards, which started at five hundred dollars. Spencer was not about to be conned into buying a board she couldn't afford by a not-so-smooth-talking salesman with a pierced tongue and tattooed arms. So she bought the used one against his advice and when she got home, she tucked it in the side yard, out of view.

While Spencer had been shopping, her mother had been unpacking. The contents of half a dozen boxes filled every available tabletop in the living room. Paula was hunkered over Spencer's laptop.

"Do you need some help putting this stuff away?" Spencer asked her mom, puzzled.

"Actually, I'm taking inventory. I decided to sell some of the stuff we don't really need," she said as she created false feedback report for her new eBay account to establish her credibility.

Spencer looked at the items on the table, relics from her old life. She picked up a chipped dinner plate and touched the soft pink roses that circled the rim with a sudden surge of longing. "You're not going to sell these dishes are you?"

"Sweetie we have four sets of dishes and the shelf space for one," her mom explained.

"We had plenty of shelf space in the old house," Spencer snapped, and slammed the door to her bedroom, the tension between mother and daughter settling on the room like dust.

That evening while her mother worked late into the night moonlighting on eBay, Spencer went to bed early. She programmed her iPod to go off at five thirty. Afraid of oversleeping, she wore her bikini and board shorts to bed so that she wouldn't have to waste precious time in the morning getting dressed. She snuggled under her quilt and waited for sleep that didn't come until three hours before it was time to get up.


End file.
